Theory Of Tokenism Research Articles

How South Korean women leaders respond to their token status: assimilation and resistance

ABSTRACT As there are only a few women leaders in almost all sectors in South Korea, they face difficulties in taking leadership roles in the workplace where traditional cultural values and male-dominated organizational culture coexist. The purpose of this study was to examine how three concepts of tokenism theory (visibility, contrast, and assimilation) applied to a Korean context and how token women leaders responded to the challenges they face in the workplace. Using a secondary analysis of qualitative data aimed at addressing new research questions, we reanalysed data from 107 women leaders’ interviews collected from previous research and identified five themes: culture, visibility, contrast, assimilation, and resistance. By revealing a dynamic interplay of factors influencing women leaders’ experiences through the lens of tokenism theory, we found that women leaders assimilated to meet the dominant male group’s expectations but a few managed to resist in their own way to bring change in organizations. This study is uniquely Korean because women leaders’ resistance to their token status has never been captured in research on tokenism in western contexts.

The Relationship between Female Top Managers and Corporate Social Responsibility in China: The Moderating Role of the Marketization Level

This study links the gender diversity of the top management team (TMT) to corporate social responsibility (CSR) and examines the moderating role of the marketization level in their relationship. According to the token theory, females are “tokens” and have difficulty playing their roles when they are rare in groups, where their presence is used for providing legitimacy. Meanwhile, CSR is implemented to gain legitimacy. Therefore, we predicted that there was a negative relationship between female top managers and CSR, and that the marketization level positively moderated their relationship. The hypotheses were supported by the data from 17,032 manager-year observations of listed companies in China. The results indicated that the female top managers’ presence and CSR performance had the same function of gaining legitimacy. With limited resources, firms added females at the expense of decreasing investment in CSR when under the external pressure of increasing female top managers. Furthermore, this negative relationship was stronger in firms with a less-developed institutional environment because firms with weak institutions have strong incentives to find alternatives to fill the institutional void, which helps to gain access to resources and reduce transaction costs.

Board gender diversity and corporate social responsibility: Is there a case for critical mass?

The role of business sector in addressing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is increasingly recognised around the world. The SDG 5 Gender Equality has given impetus to actions in many countries in the form of gender equality and gender diversity in businesses. Rapid progress has been made recently in achieving gender representation on corporate boards with voluntary initiatives such as the 30% Club in Australia and other countries. This study differs from previous studies in that it considers the ethical and social dimensions rather an economic angle by examining the association between gender diversity and corporate social responsibility (CSR). The limited prior research with this approach has focused on the US and UK context with emphasis on analysing how female directors with their unique views, perspectives and specific experiences contribute to strategic decision making and for addressing issues that are of concern to society and stakeholders. Continuing in this vein, this study examines the association between gender diversity and positive and negative dimensions of CSR separately. For a sample of constituents of the ASX 300 Index and employing systems Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) methods, this study finds evidence supporting both the token theory and the critical mass theory. Both positive and negative dimensions of CSR are unrelated to gender diversity when there is a token female representation on the boards of directors. However, companies that have improved gender balance undertake more positive CSR activities and reduce negative or controversial activities that hinder CSR.

When Tokens Matter: A Critical Perspective on Tokenism and Women on Corporate Boards

This essay critiques the existing understanding of the concepts of tokens and tokenism within the particular context of women on corporate boards. We argue that existing tokenism scholarship adopts a reductive logic that equates tokens with tokenism and assumes numerical underrepresentation of women as an implied signal of lack of power, thereby failing to fully reflect the latent power of tokens as potential agents of both personal and inter-group change. Integrating perspectives from socio-psychological theories namely, social categorization, social identity and social integration, we argue that, after appointment, the effectiveness of a woman token’s station on a corporate board ought to be qualitatively evaluated in terms of her social categorization and the extent of her social identification with the non-dominant gender group, and her ex post facto social integration into dominant peer group. We propose a layered token theory defining four categories of tokens, (1) the marginalized token; (2) the passive token; (3) the queen bee token; and (4) the changemaker token. These theorized categories capture how women board members differentially navigate group dynamics within the collective, once a board position is taken up consequently affecting tokenism on corporate boards. Our essay has relevance for gender discourse and management research.

A meta-analytic review of gender composition influencing employees’ work outcomes: implications for human resource development

ABSTRACT Drawing from Kanter’s tokenism theory, the current meta-analysis provides a statistical synthesis of the research linking gender composition of the workplace to men and women’s evaluative (leadership, rewards, and performance) and affective (interpersonal relationships, stress, and attitudes towards women) outcomes. In addition, we examine the moderating effect of task gender-type on these relationships. Evidence for simple gender composition effects was weak, with only men’s interpersonal outcomes being associated with gender composition. In contrast, we found strong evidence supporting the moderating effect of task gender-type on these relationships for both sexes, across several of the outcomes. Notably, the strongest moderator effect was shown for men’s leadership, with a clear pattern demonstrating that gender composition has a stronger positive effect on this outcome for men performing gender-neutral tasks, compared to men performing masculine tasks. This underscores the importance of task gender-type as a more powerful indicator of workplace gender norms than a numerical representation of men and women. Despite progress towards gender parity in the workplace, gender hegemony remains strong in male-typed tasks as they stand impervious to the effects of gender composition. Results are discussed in light of tokenism theory and its implications on designs of HRD interventions.

It’s Not Black and White: Toward a Contingency Perspective on the Consequences of Being a Token

Kanter’s (1977) tokenism theory stimulated a flurry of research activity devoted to understanding the experiences of those who are in the numerical minority in their work groups, organizations, or ...

Minority representation, tokenism, and well-being in army units

ABSTRACTRacial and ethnic diversity is increasing in the US Army and women are moving into more combat roles. This puts minority soldiers at risk for being underrepresented in their work units. Tokenism theory predicts that when a work group has less than 15% representation in a social group, the numerically underrepresented minority (i.e., token) members are subject to three disadvantages: higher visibility, informal isolation, and role encapsulation. In the Army, where many companies contain small numbers of women and racial minorities, some soldiers may face additional stressors and constraints. We explored psychosocial, organizational, and health outcomes of all identifiable token women (N = 4,425) and Black soldiers (N = 5,040). Tokens were remarkably similar to non-tokens and majority soldiers on outcomes such as coping skills, adaptability, organizational trust, sleep, substance use, and pain. The intersection of token status in terms of race and gender was not related to any appreciable differences. One potential explanation is the shared Army culture that emphasizes group unity and the importance of the mission above individual characteristics and goals. The Army depends on cohesion, organizational identification, and commitment to the group in order to reduce stress and anxiety, and to maximize combat performance. For soldiers who have internalized this culture, it could be easier to see past individual differences such as gender and race and identify others in the unit as fellow soldiers primarily.

Assimilation and Resistance: The Token Status of Women Leaders in South Korea

The purpose of this study was to examine South Korean women leaders’ token status and their experiences in the workplace from the lens of Kanter’s tokenism theory. Two research questions guided our...

Women on corporate boards: Do they advance corporate social responsibility?

Do women board directors change how companies do business? Firms face growing pressure to appoint more women to their boards of directors, yet little is known about the factors that enable female directors to impact their organizations. This study analyzes the representational thresholds that facilitate women’s leadership in the area of corporate social responsibility. We test the predictions of token theory and critical mass theory to evaluate the ability of women to impact firm outcomes based on their numerical representation on the board of directors. Our analysis focuses on board composition and organizational outcomes in the Fortune 500 from 2001 to 2010. Our findings challenge the theoretical assumptions that solo and token women are unable to exert significant influence over their organizations, and underscore the importance of board diversity for today’s firms.

‘Show us your frilly, pink underbelly’: Men administrative assistants doing masculinities and femininity

Research on men tokens (or numerical minorities) at work has focused on the processes by which men try to claim hegemonic masculine identities for themselves and how workplace interactants support or reject these attempts. In contrast to masculinity studies, token theory has paid less attention to non‐hegemonic masculinities. Using interviews with men administrative assistants, I develop a more comprehensive understanding of men tokens' gender performances and their significance for gender inequality. I present a four‐part typology: hegemonic masculinity, alternative masculinity, critical masculinity and male femininity. The categories are differentiated along two axes: support for hegemonic masculinity and support for hierarchical, binary gender.

Campaigning on the welfare state: The impact of gender and gender diversity.

Social policy matters have long been considered women’s issues. Extant research has documented a strong link between gender and the policies of the welfare state in the legislative, executive and electoral arenas. Yet what determines the strength of this association has largely been left unexplored. Drawing on tokenism theory, this article proposes gender diversity at the group level as a key explanatory factor. It hypothesizes that the gender gap in social policy diminishes as the female representation in a political party increases. To test this argument, it examines almost 8000 press releases issued by over 600 politicians during four election campaigns in Austria between 2002 and 2013. The analysis demonstrates that women talk more about social policy issues during election campaigns than men, but that this emphasis gap disappears for parties with a more equal gender balance. These results have important implications for our understanding of the politics of gender and social policy.

Tokenism in Chinese work organisations? Subordinate-supervisor gender combination and worker's organisational commitment in China

Using a unique dataset consisting of 343 supervisor-subordinate pairs from various workplaces in China, this study investigates workers' organisational commitment in Chinese organisations. We juxtapose two lines of arguments on gender composition and work experiences for supervisors and subordinates: Rosabeth Kanter's tokenism theory, and a collection of fruitful studies on leadership and gender. Our results support the tokenism theory: women working under female supervisors not only have the lowest levels of organisational commitment, but the difference between their organisational commitment and that of either men or women working under male supervisors is statistically significant. We attempt to account for such new findings with unique Chinese culture and institutional characteristics.

Understanding the experiences of women in jazz: A suggested model

Jazz has long been recognized as a male-dominated field, with females traditionally having only limited acceptance, often in the roles of singer and pianist. Researchers have explored sources of the gender imbalance in the field of jazz and jazz education, but there is no theory or framework to organize such findings. This directed content analysis of the journal Jazz Changes, the official magazine of the International Association of Schools of Jazz published from 1994 to 2000, analyzed published answers to the following question posited by the journal editors, “Women in Jazz: Why aren’t there more women in jazz education?” Analysis suggests a model including three social-psychological theories to describe the female experience in jazz. The theories include Rosabeth Kanter’s theory of tokenism, which describes a learning environment that females might perceive or experience in jazz; Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson’s theory of stereotype threat, which offers insight into why female musicians might make a choice to not participate, or discontinue participation, in the jazz idiom; and Albert Bandura’s theory of self-efficacy, which is offered as a possible guide to providing instruction in jazz that fosters female participation. These theories are offered together as a model framework for future study of both historical and present experiences in gender and jazz.

Breaking Patterns? How Female Scientists Negotiate their Token Role in their Life Stories

Building upon token theory, this paper analyses coping behaviours of women in Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) through a professional identity perspective. It proposes that female scientists need to negotiate and balance conflicting aspects of their professional and gender identities throughout their career. A reconstructive biography analysis ofLeitmotifandGestaltof 15 life stories reveals that gender is the structuring element of the female scientists' self‐presentation. The paper presents two key cases which exemplify two alternative coping strategies: the women either use asimilarity strategy, relying on full assimilation to the masculine norms in SET, or adifference strategy, highlighting their otherness and their struggle for equality. The in‐depth analysis reveals that both strategies cannot ‘break patterns', but instead leave the dominance of masculine norms in SET unchallenged. Implications of these findings are discussed.

Do women advance equity? The effect of gender leadership composition on LGBT-friendly policies in American firms

We advance the literature on the demographic factors that shape organizational outcomes by analyzing the impact of the gender composition of firm leadership on the likelihood that a firm will adopt lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT)-friendly policies. Drawing on social role and token theory, we test the relative impact of CEO gender and the gender composition of the board of directors separately and together in order to identify the effects of gender diversity at the top of the organization. We rely on a unique data set that includes corporate policies (gender identity and sexual orientation non-discrimination policies, domestic-partner benefits, and overall corporate equality index scores) as well as the gender of the CEO and board of directors among Fortune 500 firms over a 10-year period. Our findings suggest that firms with gender-diverse boards are more likely than other firms to offer LGBT-friendly policies, whereas findings for firms with women CEOs offer mixed results.

Supervising International Students’ Theses and Dissertations

We explore supervision of international students’ theses and dissertations relative to existing literature and Kanter’s (1977) theory of tokenism. This topic is underresearched despite the huge gro...

Still a Man's World? Revisiting Men Who Do Women's Work

AbstractIn 1995, Christine Williams built on the well‐versed theory of tokenism and introduced the concept of the glass escalator to describe the social processes by which men maintain advantages in female‐dominated occupations. This paradigm has proven extraordinarily useful as a way of understanding the pathways that reproduce men's opportunities and benefits in culturally feminized jobs. In this paper, we review the literature in this area and consider how new perspectives have contributed to insightful and interesting ways of understanding the experiences of men who do “women's work.”

When visibility hurts and helps: how intersections of race and gender shape Black professional men's experiences with tokenization.

Research shows groups who experience minority status encounter tokenization. Most studies applying token theory to minority groups at work focus on either gendered or racialized processes of tokenization. We offer a different approach by using an intersectional lens to examine how both race and gender work together to shape ways Black professional men experience tokenization when employed in predominantly White male-dominated workplaces. Based on interviews with 42 Black men employed as doctors, lawyers, bankers, or engineers, we conclude that although Black professional men encounter some of the typical negative aspects of tokenization, intersections of race and gender create other important facets that render their token experience somewhat unique and different from their White male, White female, and Black female counterparts.

Workplace sex composition and ischaemic heart disease: A longitudinal analysis using Swedish register data.

The aim of this study is to follow-up on previous research indicating that the sex composition of workplaces is related to a number of health outcomes, including sickness absenteeism and mortality. We test two hypotheses. The first is Kanter's theory of tokenism, which suggests that minority group members suffer from an increased risk of stress. Secondly, we test the hypothesis that workplaces with a higher proportion of men will have a higher incidence rate of ischaemic heart disease (IHD), as men are more likely to engage in negative health behaviours, and through peer effects this will result in a workplace culture that is detrimental to health over the long term. Large-scale, longitudinal Swedish administrative register data are used to study the risk of overnight hospitalization for IHD amongst 67,763 men over the period 1990 to 2001. Discrete-time survival analyses were estimated in the form of logistic regression models. Men have an elevated risk of suffering from IHD in non-gender-balanced workplaces, but this association was only statistically significant in workplaces with 61-80% and 81-100% males. However, after adjusting for occupation no clear pattern of association could be discerned. No pattern of association was observed for women. This study suggests that the gender composition of workplaces is not strongly associated with the risk of suffering from IHD.

Parvenus and conflict in elite cohorts

Previous studies find that greater workplace diversity leads to higher degrees of conflict in low and medium-status workgroups. This paper examines whether similar dynamics operate in elite cohorts. We use data from a survey of White House Fellows (N=475) to look at how the presence of parvenus—individuals from underrepresented groups in elite environments—change the rate at which fellows reported conflict with each other and with the director of the program. We find that there is no unified “parvenu experience.” Analysis of the interaction between race and cohort diversity reveals inflection points consistent with Kanter’s (1977) theory of tokenism, but the effects of increasing diversity diverge: for Hispanics, conflict with the director increases with diversity, while for Asians, conflict falls with diversity. While other groups’ level of conflict with their peers stays roughly constant, Asians’ reported level of conflict with their peers increases with diversity.